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Monday, October 17, 2011

Greetings from the West Coast! Today we are going to take a look at this year's Fright Fest at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. In 2011, Six Flags parks across the country have been pushing a "bigger than ever" Fright Fest, and SFDK is no different.

The overall presentation of Fright Fest is definitely bigger. There are more mazes, more shows, and most of all, more guests. The park was PACKED when I visited. The

Despite all of the additions, this still felt like a building year. The park's main focus this year was obviously Houses and Shows. There was theming throughout the park, but not quite up to the level of years past.

With 4 haunted "houses," this year tied 2001 as the year with the most houses fright fest. One thing that made me excited about these houses was that the park finally figured out that the mazes don't have to be indoors! Half the mazes were outdoors and open to the night sky making the layouts less constrained and more unique.

The other big thing this year was the shows and entertainment. The park's Dance Macabre show that is performed in the parks main plaza is a fantastic attempt at true Haunt style entertainment, though the talent could use some improvements in the years to come. The park's standout show was Club Cetacean, the 70's disco themed Dolphin Show. The show is high energy and gets the crowd really excited. It's too bad they don't do multiple shows though, especially with the park's huge crowds.

Roar was the only ride that really had themeing for Fright Fest. Despite the thumbing, the biggest plus was how fantastic the ride was running. The ride that debuted the Millennium Flyers gave one of the better rides I've had on it in a very long time.

One of the other great things about Fright Fest is getting to be in the park at night. Usually the park closes at 8pm during the summer, while the sun is still up. This was my first opportunity to see Skyscreamer lit up at night.

Finally, Pandemonium is running on borrowed time. According to employees, the ride is scheduled to close and move to Mexico City after Halloween weekend. Unless you want to fly to Mexico to ride it, get it in now!

I'll be back in 2 weeks with a follow-up to my 3 part Las Vegas story I posted back in April. We will take a look at the rides still alive in the City of Sin and also check out the now closed Speed which I'm told is still sitting on the strip not operating. See you then!

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